Tracking Sandwich Eaters

Friday, June 24, 2011

It is the break of another dawn in a strange week, half of which was spent in a feverish state, and I can’t sleep. Somewhere out of this tiny room I call my apartment, there will be strays of daylight beginning to show—it is, after all, five o’clock and already parts of the city stir.

In the background, Barber’s Adagio tries to comfort me, becoming like the morning air.

It is easy to welcome such small embraces of comfort. I have not had such for what seems like days now. Last night, after writing in a café, I walked the streets of the city towards the spot where I knew I would find tricycles to take me home, and the promise of rest. Between the spaces in the stars when I walked, I wept a little, surprising myself. I suddenly felt alone, and the dark asphalt I was treading underlined only the confounding sorrow. I felt alone. Which wasn't bad in itself—happiness can sometimes be had even in the solitary—but it was a feeling that came with a twin, and it was abandonment.

I didn’t know why I felt that.

I still feel the same, now, even with the sudden chirping of birds outside. Between the spaces of my breathing, the purring and roaring of motor—tricycles by their sounds—signals that morning traffic has began and the streets are waking.

It has been two hours since I’ve tried to sleep, and I knew there was a fraught stretch of minutes where I must have dozed off, lightly, to be awoken by strange flickering images stuck to my shut eyelids, or by strange glimpses of fluttering things in various corners that disappear upon full focus. I found myself, too, saying tiny prayers all night long—and I don’t know why.

There is no other choice but to wake. There is music now. There is the smell of newly-brewed coffee. So I face another dawn. And I am so tired.

And yet, the constant knowledge I have yet to swallow remains this:

There are things in life that are mysteries not even the heart can begin to understand. For instance, how one can love a man with the strength and certainty of stars, but for all that to receive nothing.